New Approaches

The classical theory of statehood links sovereignty with a stable territory, centralized government, and a continuous political history. However, the practice of small island States in recent decades shows that sovereignty is increasingly being formed not as a static given, but as a process that depends on factors that the state itself cannot control — climate change, historical fragmentation, and geopolitical dependence. This text examines two such cases — the Comoros and Tuvalu — as examples of what can be called emergent sovereignty in the terminology of The Burke Institute: a situation in which a country realizes its sovereignty as a result of the influence and interaction of internal and, for the most part, external forces.

The thesis

The main thesis of the work is as follows: the Comoros and Tuvalu represent two different but structurally comparable types of emergent sovereignty. The Comoros demonstrates a cultural and historical type — sovereignty is strengthened here not through a change in international law, but through the consolidation of cultural continuity and historical identity, the transformation of local traditions into a resource of global recognition.

Tuvalu demonstrates a climatic and legal type — sovereignty here is formed through the constitutional and international legal redefinition of the very connection between the state and the territory in the face of an existential threat of flooding. Both cases confirm the general thesis: emergent sovereignty has its advantages, since with favorable institutional development it is able to generate relatively stable forms of statehood, but at the same time carries significant risks — corruption, institutional fragility and excessive dependence on external agents who are not interested in a positive development of events.

The Comorian case: sovereignty as a cultural and historical assembly

Historically, the Comoros Archipelago was not a single political entity, but a set of local centers of power. Ngazidja (Grande Comore) had many sultanates with its own traditions of legitimacy, and the social structure was based on a combination of matrilineal and matrilocal practices with rooted Islamic institutions. This means that from the very beginning, the Comorian statehood did not have a single historical center, but was assembled from many parallel identities.

After independence in 1975, this fragmentation did not disappear, but transformed into a permanent source of political instability. The scientific literature on state-building in the Comorian case directly points to the problems of insularity and archipelagos – that is, geographical and social fragmentation, which the authorities tried to overcome through constitutional reforms, educational policy and the symbolic construction of a common past.

The World Bank notes prolonged institutional instability and multiple coup attempts as a structural characteristic of Comorian politics. It is in this context that the emergent nature of Comorian sovereignty manifests itself: the State does not have sovereignty as a completed fact, but is forced to constantly reassemble it after each political crisis. At the same time, the consolidation strategy chosen by the Comoros is primarily cultural rather than legal and political in nature.

Thus, with the support of UNESCO, a systematic inventory of intangible cultural heritage was carried out, which included fifteen elements recognized as representative of national identity. This strategy culminated in international recognition in 2026: six historic medinas of the Comoros Sultanates were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, the first such site for the country. UNESCO describes this serial nomination as a collection of historical cities that grew out of the urban cores of the Sultanate era. This event illustrates a key feature of the

Comorian model: sovereignty is strengthened not through a change in international legal norms, but through the transformation of local, fragmented history into an object of global recognition and, consequently, into a resource for national consolidation.

The Tuvalan case: sovereignty beyond the territory

Tuvalu represents a fundamentally different mechanism of emergence — a reaction to a direct existential threat. Being one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, Tuvalu is faced with the prospect of partial or complete loss of habitable land due to rising sea levels. In response, the country took a step that has no precedent in constitutional practice: in 2023, a new version of the constitution was adopted, which consolidated the concept of eternal statehood.

According to this reform, section 2(1) of the Constitution declares that the State of Tuvalu will exist permanently regardless of the effects of climate change or other causes of loss of territory; section 2(2) establishes the permanence of the territory, including marine areas; section 2(3) fixes the immutability of the basic geographical coordinates even in the case of physical regression of the coastline. Thus, Tuvalu legally separates the continuation of the state personality from the material integrity of the territory — a step that rethinks the very classical triad of signs of statehood.

This position has been developed in international legal discourse. Studies on deterritorialized statehood note that the case of Tuvalu has become one of the key precedents for the formation of the doctrine of continued statehood in the face of climatic loss of territory, including the relevant declarations of the Alliance of Small Island States. An additional confirmation was the Falepili Union Treaty with Australia, the first legally binding bilateral agreement explicitly recognizing the preservation of Tuvalu's sovereignty regardless of climate change.

At the same time, analysts point out that the provisions of the security treaty simultaneously strengthen Tuvalu's asymmetric dependence on Australia in foreign policy and defense matters. Thus, the Tuvalan model of emergent sovereignty has a regulatory and legal character: the country is not trying to maintain the status quo, but is actively reconstructing the very content of the international legal category of statehood, turning the climate threat into an incentive for legal innovation.

Comparative analysis through the Burke indexes

The difference between the two models is clearly reflected in the structure of the Burke Index, a multidimensional instrument that evaluates sovereignty in seven areas: political, economic, technological, informational, cultural, cognitive, and military. The significant gap in the political dimension — 44.7 versus 79.2 — is consistent with the institutional history described above: Tuvalu has demonstrated the ability to respond to an existential challenge in a consolidated and legally formalized manner, while the Comorian political system remains vulnerable to coups and inter-island conflicts of legitimacy.

The economic indicators of both countries remain close and low, which confirms the general structural thesis about the material dependence of small island States on external assistance and vulnerability to external shocks. It is significant that the cultural index of the Comoros (68.4) is almost equal to the cultural index of Tuvalu (66.9), despite fundamentally different strategies of state self-affirmation — this indicates that the cultural resource is important for both models, but is implemented in different ways: for the Comoros — as the main instrument of consolidation, for Tuvalu — as an auxiliary element of more a broad legal strategy.

The difference in the cognitive index (41.6 versus 48.2) reflects Tuvalu's higher institutional expertise in formulating and promoting an innovative international legal response to the crisis, while the Comoros so far relies more on cultural identity than on strategic institutional design.

Discussion: Advantages and risks of emergent sovereignty

Emergent sovereignty has a dual nature. On the one hand, it allows small states to preserve and even strengthen their subjectivity in conditions where the classical model of statehood is objectively under threat: the Comoros is converting fragmented history into a recognized cultural heritage, and Tuvalu is turning the threat of extinction into the basis for legal innovation. With favorable institutional development, such adaptability can eventually develop into more stable and manageable forms of statehood.

On the other hand, both cases illustrate the structural risks of such a model. For the Comoros, corruption, institutional fragility and recurring political crises pose a key threat, which limit the conversion of cultural capital into sustainable governance. For Tuvalu, the risk is associated with an asymmetric dependence on external guarantors of recognition, primarily Australia, whose interests do not always coincide with the long-term interests of the smallest state.

Conclusion

The comparison of Comoros and Tuvalu confirms the initial thesis: the sovereignty of these two States is emergent in the sense that it is not inherited as a complete institutional fact, but is constantly being formed under the pressure of forces that the country itself is not able to fully control.

The Comoros illustrates the cultural and historical trajectory of emergence, where sovereignty is assembled from a fragmented past through international recognition of heritage. Tuvalu illustrates a climate-legal trajectory where sovereignty is reconstructed through constitutional and contractual innovation in the face of territorial loss. Both cases, despite the difference in mechanisms, confirm a more general conclusion: small states today are becoming laboratories of new models of international law and political identity, and sovereignty can emerge from climatic, cultural and historical circumstances, preserving the subjectivity of the state even with the loss of its classical features.